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Dickinson economics professor to present about small-town retail

April 3, 2012

Dickinson economics professor to present about small-town retail

CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- William Bellinger, professor of economics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., will be the featured presenter at the next Faculty Lecture Series event to be held at 3 p.m. on April 18, in room 320 at Penn State Lehigh Valley, Center Valley, Pa. Bellinger will present "Retail Markets in Small Towns and Cities." This event is free and open to the public.

The presentation will provide an overview of Bellinger's research on urban retail demand and store location patterns in Pennsylvania and small to mid-sized U.S. cities. The emphasis will be on the different avenues by which one might explore questions of urban development and retail access, and the different lessons one gains from case studies versus regional or national statistical analysis.

Bellinger received his doctorate from Northwestern University in 1985. For the past 15 years his primary research interest has been in the area of urban development and related issues with a focus on Central Pennsylvania. Among his research on this topic are studies of geographic income distribution in small Pennsylvania towns, case studies of downtown or inner-city development in Carlisle and Harrisburg, and articles analyzing access to retail services for inner-city residents using a national set of smaller cities. He has also published a textbook titled "The Economic Analysis of Public Policy" and a number of articles related to the arts and selected environmental and transportation issues.